A Poisonous Plot: The Twenty First Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew) Read online

‘Do not think of fining me for breaking the curfew,’ he said archly. ‘I have been on an errand of mercy to Letia Shirwynk, who was dying. Her husband refused to buy her a horoscope until it was too late to make a difference, so he should not be surprised that she is gone.’

  ‘What was the cause of death?’ asked Bartholomew with the polite interest of a fellow professional. He suspected that Shirwynk would not mourn the hapless Letia long – the brewer had not seemed particularly distressed when he had mentioned her predicament earlier.

  ‘Dizziness,’ replied Nigellus. ‘A very nasty way to go.’

  ‘Dizziness?’ echoed Bartholomew. ‘How can she have died of that?’

  ‘Easily,’ said Nigellus coolly. ‘As she would confirm, were she in a position to satisfy your ghoulish curiosity. She reeled and fainted, and it was a blessed relief when she breathed her last.’

  ‘What were her other symptoms?’ pressed Bartholomew, sure Nigellus’s diagnosis was in error. ‘And how long did she have them?’

  ‘At least a month – she was suffering long before her husband finally overcame his miserliness and agreed to pay for her stars to be read. And her other symptoms are irrelevant, because it was the dizziness that killed her.’

  ‘Perhaps Matt can inspect her before she is buried,’ said Michael, as unhappy with Nigellus’s claims as Bartholomew. ‘I was just telling your colleagues that he is very good at determining accurate causes of death.’

  Nigellus smiled tightly. ‘Which is why he holds the sinister title of Corpse Examiner, I imagine. However, I would rather he kept away from Letia. I do not want people thinking that he questions my proficiency, which is how it will appear.’

  ‘Was Frenge your patient?’ asked Bartholomew, feeling it should be questioned.

  Nigellus regarded him coldly. ‘Yes, but it has been more than a week since I saw him. I read his stars and recommended that he spent more time asleep in bed and less drinking in taverns. He would doubtless be alive today if he had heeded my advice. And now you must excuse me. I am not in the mood for idle chatter.’

  He stalked away. Bartholomew glanced at Michael, and without a word they began to walk back to the brewery, both suspicious that the belligerent Shirwynk should lose his friend and wife on the same day.

  ‘Of course, it is odd that Nigellus was medicus to both as well,’ said Michael. ‘Not to mention his order for you to stay away from Letia’s corpse. He would not be the first physician to dispatch his patients, either by design or incompetence.’

  ‘But both were wealthy,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Nigellus would not deprive himself of a useful source of income on purpose. And as to his competence, I have not seen him at work often enough to judge. However, his diagnoses are a little unusual …’

  ‘More than a little,’ murmured Michael.

  Once they were off the High Street, the town was quieter, as most folk had gone to watch the procession. Yet neither scholar felt any safer, knowing that while law-abiding citizens might be enjoying the spectacle, there were plenty of others who prowled the darkness in search of mischief.

  ‘I hope you realise that I do not have the authority to look at Letia,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The brewery is not University property and she was not a scholar. Shirwynk has already asked us to stay away, and if he refuses to change his mind, there is nothing you can do to make him.’

  ‘We shall see.’ Michael had considerable faith in his powers of persuasion. ‘But speaking of authority, I am inclined to bring mine to bear on Zachary. I have never met so many unpleasant individuals under one roof: Nigellus, Segeforde, Morys, Yerland … There is a feisty Franciscan named Kellawe, too – the fellow with the big jaw.’

  ‘Yes, I have met him. He preached a sermon saying there is a sulcus in the heart that houses the soul. I told him that no anatomist had ever found such a feature, and he called me a heretic.’

  ‘You took a risk, admitting to knowledge of the evil art of dissection.’

  ‘I would not have spoken if the other half of his sermon had not been a diatribe against Edith for helping the Frail Sisters. He objects to them touting for business on the streets, but when someone provides them with an alternative way to earn a living, he complains about that, too.’

  ‘I am glad I poached Wauter,’ declared Michael. ‘He is too decent to live in Zachary.’

  ‘So is Principal Irby. He is on the consilium, and is a perfectly reasonable man. I am surprised he puts up with such colleagues.’

  ‘I would like to close the place down,’ said Michael. ‘Unfortunately, Morys was telling the truth when he claimed to have Tynkell in his sway – he does. Thank God Tynkell will retire at the end of next term. He used to be an ideal Chancellor, but he has shown a distressing independence of late, and I cannot work with someone who has ideas of his own.’

  ‘He is a scholar, Brother. He is supposed to have ideas of his own.’

  ‘Not ones that conflict with mine.’

  Both stopped when there was a sudden roar of cheering voices. Bartholomew assumed it was the procession getting under way, but the direction was wrong, and Michael gave an urgent yelp before stabbing a plump finger to where bright flames danced up the side of St Michael’s tower.

  ‘That bonfire!’ he cried. ‘Now it has set our church alight!’

  It was a fraught dash back to the High Street. Three different bands of marauding townsmen tried to waylay them, and it was not easy to extricate themselves without giving cause for offence. They arrived to find a large crowd watching gleefully as fire consumed a derelict lean-to shed that sagged against the base of the church tower.

  ‘We have been meaning to demolish that anyway,’ wheezed Michael, grabbing Bartholomew’s shoulder for support as he fought to catch his breath. ‘So its destruction is no loss. However, the blaze might spread, so you start putting it out while I fetch help.’

  Bartholomew seized a long-handled hoe and began to knock the little building to the ground. Fires were taken seriously in a town with lots of wooden houses and thatched roofs, so he was surprised when the onlookers did nothing but jeer and hoot. He glanced at them as he worked. The men were sullen and the women snide, united in their hatred of the University and its perceived affluence. One went so far as to lob a stone at him.

  ‘I love a good conflagration,’ taunted the furrier named Lenne, whose wife Isabel was at his side. ‘With luck, it will take their damned church as well.’

  He coughed, the deep, painful hack of a man who had spent too many years inhaling hairs from the pelts he sold. Sadly, much of his antagonism towards the studium generale resulted from the fact that its physicians were powerless to cure him.

  ‘I have never liked St Michael’s,’ declared Isabel. ‘It stinks of scholars.’

  ‘Help me!’ shouted Bartholomew, bellowing to make himself heard over the mocking laughter that followed. ‘If the church ignites, your houses might be next.’

  ‘Not with this wind,’ countered Shirwynk. Bartholomew was surprised to see the brewer out and about so soon after losing his wife, and could only suppose that he had been unable to resist the temptation of joining the mischief. ‘The sparks are flying towards Gonville Hall and Michaelhouse, both places we should love to see incinerated.’

  Bartholomew abandoned his efforts to persuade and concentrated on the shed. Just when he thought his efforts were in vain – that the church would burn anyway – Michael, Langelee and some of their students arrived. Once they did, the lean-to was quickly flattened and the flames stamped out.

  ‘I told you this would happen, Lenne,’ said Langelee angrily. ‘You promised to be careful.’

  Lenne coughed again, then shrugged. ‘So I misjudged – just like Wayt of King’s Hall misjudged when he decided to sue Frenge for trespass. And now Frenge is dead.’

  ‘Murdered,’ hissed Isabel. ‘By a scholar.’

  There was a growl of agreement from the crowd, but Michael drew himself up to his full and impressive height and it gradually died away.<
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  ‘We do not know the identity of the culprit yet, so I suggest you keep your accusations to yourselves. And before you indulge in any more shameful antics, you might want to remember that we cannot repair damaged buildings and buy bread and ale for the poor – your fellow citizens – after choir practices.’

  ‘Nor free care from the University’s Senior Physician,’ added Langelee tartly. ‘So bear that in mind the next time you leave us to burn.’

  There were more mocking jeers, but they lacked conviction, and it was not long before the crowd began to disperse, especially when the wind changed course and blew smoke towards them. It made Lenne cough so violently that he had no breath to argue and limped away on Isabel’s arm. Soon, only the Michaelhouse men remained.

  ‘Can we leave you to finish here, Master?’ asked the monk wearily. ‘Matt needs to examine Letia Shirwynk, whom we believe might have died in suspicious circumstances.’

  ‘We cannot visit the brewery, Brother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Shirwynk was among the onlookers just now, so he will not be at home to give us his permission.’

  Michael smiled sweetly. ‘Then we shall just have to get it from Peyn instead – which I anticipate will be a lot easier than dealing with his sire.’

  Once again, they hurried through the dark streets, Michael more fleet-footed than usual as he aimed to be home in time for the feast. They trotted down Water Lane, grimacing at the rank smell that seeped from the dyeworks even though they were closed, and were about to approach the brewery when Peyn emerged with some friends. He was so intent on bragging about his imminent move to Westminster that he did not notice the door pop open again after he had closed it.

  ‘His father will not be impressed by that cavalier attitude towards security,’ remarked Michael, watching him swagger away. ‘But it suits our purposes. Come on.’

  Bartholomew baulked. ‘If I am caught examining someone’s dead wife without permission, the town will rise against the University for certain.’

  ‘Then we must ensure that you are not caught. I will guard the door, while you go in. Be ready to make a run for it if you hear me hoot like an owl.’

  ‘Can you hoot like an owl?’

  Michael flapped an impatient hand. ‘Hurry up. You are wasting time.’

  Heart hammering, Bartholomew stepped inside. A lamp had been left burning by one of the vats, so he grabbed it and made his way to the living quarters at the back of the house, expecting at any moment to bump into Shirwynk, back early from the festivities. But he met no one, and it was almost an anticlimax when he found Letia’s body on a pallet in the parlour.

  He examined her quickly, ears pricked for anything that sounded remotely like a bird. However, it was a cacophony of cheers from the High Street that eventually drove him outside again.

  ‘That was the procession ending,’ whispered Michael. ‘Shirwynk will be home soon, so let us be off before anyone spots us. Well? How did she die? And please do not say dizziness.’

  ‘I could not tell. There are no marks of violence, and certainly nothing to suggest she swallowed the kind of poison that killed Frenge. To all intents and purposes, she appears to have died of natural causes. Yet there are compounds that kill without leaving any trace …’

  ‘So was she murdered or not?’ hissed Michael impatiently.

  ‘I have already told you,’ said Bartholomew, equally testy. ‘I could not tell.’

  ‘But you must! You were gone an age – you must have seen something to help us find out why Shirwynk’s fellow brewer and wife died on the same day.’

  ‘It is suspicious,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘But I am afraid poor Letia provided no answers.’

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘Lord, I feel sick,’ muttered Michael, as the Fellows took their places at the high table the following morning. Meals in College were meant to be taken in silence, so that everyone could listen to the Bible Scholar chanting the scriptures, but it was a rule they rarely followed, and the hapless reader invariably struggled to make himself heard over the buzz of conversation. ‘I think I ate something that was past its best last night.’

  The Benedictine was not the only one to be fragile. The feast had been glorious, reminiscent of the splendid affairs they had enjoyed a decade earlier, when the College had been flush with funds. There had been mountains of meat and fish, wine in abundance, bread made with white flour rather than the usual barley-and-sawdust combination, and enough cakes to feed an army. Bartholomew had stayed sober, lest he was called out on a medical emergency, but no one else had demonstrated such restraint, and now there were sore heads aplenty.

  Langelee was pale, and kept both hands pressed to his temples as he mumbled a grace that comprised a string of half-remembered Latin quotations, including part of a recipe for horse-liniment. No one but Bartholomew seemed to notice. Wauter had dark circles under his eyes and winced when Langelee raised his voice for a final amen, while William’s habit was not only splattered with a quantity of grease and custard that was remarkable even for that foul garment, but it was rumpled, suggesting he had slept in it.

  The remaining Fellows were Suttone and Clippesby, both swaying in a way that suggested they might still be drunk. Clippesby was a Dominican who talked to animals and claimed they spoke back, so was generally deemed to be insane. He had no beasts about his person that day, however, and when the College cat rubbed around his ankles, it was ignored. Suttone was a portly Carmelite famous for his conviction that the plague was poised to return at any moment.

  The students were also unusually subdued, and as breakfast comprised a bizarre and unsuitable combination of leftovers, it seemed that the servants had also availed themselves of the opportunity to enjoy the festivities the previous night.

  ‘Is it my imagination, or do our pupils get younger every year?’ asked Langelee, as food worked its magic on roiling stomachs and the students began to chat amongst themselves, throwing off their malaise with the enviable resilience of youth.

  ‘They must lie about their age,’ said Michael sourly. ‘That puny boy in Matt’s class – Bell, is it? He cannot be more than nine.’

  ‘Eighteen,’ said Bartholomew. ‘They seem younger because you are growing old.’

  ‘That is a wicked thing to say!’ cried Michael. ‘I am in my prime. However, there are a few grey hairs on your head that were not present a decade ago.’

  ‘Those came because he let women make him unhappy,’ stated William, referring to Matilde, who had left Cambridge because Bartholomew had been too slow to ask her to marry him; and Julitta, who had transpired to be a rather different lady from the one they all thought they knew. ‘Painful affairs of the heart always age a man, which is why he should give up his various amours and become a Franciscan. Like me.’

  ‘Or better yet, find a few more,’ said Langelee. Relations with women were forbidden by the University, but many scholars – he and Bartholomew among them – opted to ignore this particular stricture. ‘What about that widow you were seeing earlier this year? Is she still available?’

  Bartholomew was aware that the students were listening, no doubt delighted to learn that the Fellows strayed from the straight and narrow – and his colleagues’ remarks, taken out of context, made him sound like an incurable philanderer. Moreover, he did not want to be reminded of the confusion and hurt he had suffered that summer. He changed the subject with an abruptness that made everyone automatically conclude that he had intriguing secrets to hide.

  ‘The mural is looking nice,’ he declared. ‘The Austins are talented artists.’

  ‘They are,’ agreed Wauter, prodding suspiciously at the plate of marchpanes and cabbage that had been set in front of him. ‘It is why I suggested we hire them. You should see their chapel – it is a delight.’

  They were silent for a while, studying the painting. It ran the full length of one wall, and was nearing completion. There had been some debate as to what it should depict, but in the end they had settled for Aristotle, Galen, Aquinas and Pl
ato teaching rows of enrapt scholars. The faces of many College members were among them: Bartholomew sitting near Plato but straining to hear Galen; Clippesby with the College cat; Wauter raising a finger as he prepared to tackle Aristotle; and William scowling at Aquinas’s Dominican habit – he hated his rival Order with a passion that verged on the fanatical.

  ‘I do hope our plan works,’ said Suttone worriedly, lowering his voice so that the students would not hear. ‘We have spent such a lot of money on it, and if we fail to win benefactors …’

  ‘I know it is a risk,’ whispered Langelee. ‘But we have no choice. We will not survive another year if we do not replenish our endowment, and drastic situations call for drastic solutions.’

  ‘Then we must remain aloof from this burgeoning spat between town and University,’ said Wauter. ‘No secular will give us money if we support King’s Hall against Frenge.’

  ‘Hopefully, we will not have to be diplomatic for long,’ said Langelee. ‘We shall put on such a grand display at the disceptatio tomorrow that donors will race to be associated with us.’

  ‘They will race even faster if we win,’ said William, treating Bartholomew and Wauter to a pointed look. ‘Which may not happen unless our representatives on the consilium agree to be reasonable and tell us which question they have chosen.’

  ‘We cannot,’ said Wauter shortly. ‘We have not yet made our final decision.’

  ‘Then you had better hurry up,’ said the Franciscan disagreeably. ‘Or do you expect us to stand around in St Mary the Great tomorrow, waiting while you debate the matter?’

  ‘Perhaps we should listen to them instead of the students,’ sniggered Suttone. ‘It will almost certainly be more entertaining.’

  ‘Regardless of what happens in the debate,’ said Michael, tactfully changing the subject, ‘when they see the lavish style in which we honour the memory of our founder, every wealthy family in the town will want us to do the same for them.’

  ‘But if not, there is always Wauter’s Martilogium,’ said Suttone. ‘He confided last night that all the monies from its publication will come to Michaelhouse.’